Lovesusti The Worst Film Ever

Dorathen Better Late Then Never

Onlinewsma Absolutely Brilliant!

Erica Derrick By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

jimbo-53-186511 After a heavy session of alcohol and drugs the night before, hard-partying Gwen Cummings oversleeps the next morning and arrives late for her sister's wedding. Matters are made worse when Gwen continues drinking in the morning and ends up ruining her sister's wedding (by destroying the wedding cake - although she ruins the wedding in other ways as well). Determined to make amends, she steals a limo and heads off to get another wedding cake, but sadly, en route, she loses control of the car and crashes into a house. This results in Gwen being forced into rehab (in order to avoid jail) where she starts to re-evaluate her life....Before I begin with the negatives I will try and focus on some of the positives; for a start there is Sandra Bullock's performance. At times, as an actress, I have found her performances to be a tad annoying (although I usually forgive this as she's quite easy on the eye). But here she was actually very good (from the drunk party animal through the inevitable rehabilitation process). Dominic West also gives a larger than life performance and many of the scenes involving him are the ones that tend to stick in the mind. The scene where Gwen is trying to clean the toilets while hopping round on one leg was also quite amusing and I liked the scene where the patients recreated a scene from another patients favourite soap opera - it was funny and warm. However, outside of these things I'm struggling for anymore positives...What annoying me slightly about this film was how the majority of the patients were depicted and their progression within the facility; there seemed to be endless group therapy sessions with occasional solo interjections from the patients at random intervals, but these things never seemed to slot anywhere into the story and seemed to amount to very little. Aside from Gwen, no-one else really seemed to change much which for me meant that there was very little character/narrative progression. We also don't learn much about the majority of the patients (except for one who is a drug addict); I mean why are they in there? How long have they been in there? What progress have they made? You don't learn any of this and the result of all this is a rather shallow film that lacks any sort of realism. The lack of realism is further highlighted by the ex-patient at the end with the plant - I mean could you really imagine him being allowed to join the real world? Despite the fact that I found that scene amusing I think you'd have to be a bit naïve and simple to not see how phony it felt.There is quite a powerful scene involving one of the patients dying from a drug overdose, but aside from this scene I didn't feel that the film offered a particularly realistic insight into the treatment of rehab patients and felt that the director cut a lot of corners and substituted realism with a feel-good, safe and generally predictable narrative. It's watchable, but it's not a patch on some other mental institution films such as Dream Team or One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest.

NateWatchesCoolMovies I've always had a thing for 28 Days. So often in Hollywood there are films that try tackle real issues, but not all of them feel like they've achieved anything, or even portrayed said issues in a realistic, compassionate way. This one shines a probing, nonjudgmental spotlight onto alcoholism, in all it's subtleties and absurd truths, like few other films have. Many films portray alcoholism like a raging mania that turns you rabid and irrational, and while that certainly can be the case, I like how here they show what a semi-functioning addict looks like, as opposed to your atypical abusive archetype. It's also just more pleasant fare too. Despite being a story about great struggle and personal woe, there's lightheartedness to it that's welcome in such stressful territory. Sandra Bullock, that luminous brunette, is pretty much instantly likable in anything, a beautiful, effortless, natural born movie star, giving any film an instant advantage simply by having her headline. Here she plays Gwen, a NYC newspaper columnist who, along with her Brit boyfriend (Dominic West), has a fairly serious problem with the booze. After spectacularly ruining her poor sister's (Elizabeth Perkins) and recklessly crashing a stolen limousine, the thin line between functionality and outright self destruction is crossed, and it becomes time to seek help. Court ordered into rehab, Gwen ships off to an upstate clinic to sleep off the hangover, but the real progress comes from first admitting she has a problem at all. Like any film about rehab, the facility is home to many quaint, quirky people for her to meet, bond and squabble with, fellow addicts on the road to whatever recovery means to them. Steve Buscemi underplays a sly turn as the program founder and lead social worker, Viggo Mortensen is sorta kinda a love interest, but also not really, in an ambiguously written supporting role, and there's solid work from Alan Tudyuk, Marieanne Jean-Baptiste, Azura Skye and Margo Martindale too. Parallel to her treatment we see hazy flashbacks to Gwen being raised by her severely alcoholic mother (Diane Ladd), and get a glimpse of how the hectic, sprawling life of someone who drinks just seems like the mundane to them, internally until they decide to swallow that proverbial red pill, step outside the routine and examine their choices. It's a great little film with an organic, realistic arc for Bullock that she inhabits with grace, humility and humour.

Laura Spahn This movie is about the main character Gwen going to rehab for alcoholism and drug addiction after crashing a car while drunk. While at rehab she goes on a journey f recovery and redemption to overcome her addiction. I believe that it's a heartwarming movie that aimed to show what addiction really is, the good and the bad. It shows how difficult it is to come back from this disease and how therapy and others can really make a difference. It depressing at times seeing the main character struggle, but I appreciate that its realistic. Other people in the facility treated Gwen as having special treatment at first, because she used while in recovery and they let her stay which could get you kicked out of rehab. They were negative to her in therapy but become supportive and positive to her treatment near the end. Also her boyfriend Jasper made going to rehab sound like a joke, he didn't take her addiction as a real problem and tried to get her to use again. This was negative in her treatment as she tempted her with alcohol, causing her to end the relationship. I recommend this movie to anyone with an open mind, especially young people in a health class just learning about addiction as this is very truthful.

orangeisthenewawesome I saw this movie on a lazy Saturday morning. I like Sandra Bullock, and the subject matter sounded interesting. I thought maybe I'd see Sandra in a meaty dramatic role - an alcoholic hits rock bottom and rebuilds her life.Instead what I saw was worse than a Lifetime movie of the week about alcoholism and rehab. The potentially powerful storyline just lacked scenes or dialogue that carried any gravity. It seemed as though the beginning of the movie where Sandra's Gwen was a thoughtless, disgusting alcoholic with no consideration for others was supposed to be some kind of slapstick humor. Oh look, what a goofball! She stole a car, drove drunk, and crashed into a house. Whoopsie! Rehab was a mish mash of clichéd characters and stereotypical behavior. A couple of things I did appreciate during the rehab scenes were (1) Sandra's performance regarding the physical withdrawal from substances, (2) the scenes when Sandra flashes back to her childhood and her mother's alcoholism, and (3) the touching, well acted scene between Gwen and her sister Lily at rehab. Other than that, the other patients at rehab were caricatures of typical addicts and were so silly it was offensive at times. Sandra gives a nice performance. Steve Buscemi is always great and he gives some gravity to his brief role. Other than that, it's not that good and I can't recommend it.